Center for the Humanities and the Public Sphere, University of Florida

Place of Publication:

Gainesville, FL

Notes

Abstract:

In 2005, Emory University launched the Transforming Community Project, which has used the history of race at the University, including southern slavery, Jim Crow, and desegregation, to inspire individuals and groups to reconsider their roles as active participants in sustaining ethical practices around diversity and equal access. In this talk, Prof. Harris, Co-Founder and Director of the Project from 2004 to 2011, discusses the challenges Emory University faced that inspired the creation of the Project and the experiences of faculty, staff, students, and alumni who participated in the Project.

Biographical:

Leslie Harris earned her Ph.D. in History at Stanford University in 1995. Her work focuses on complicating ideas about the history of African Americans in the United States, and finding ways to communicate these new ideas to the general public. In her first book, In the Shadow of Slavery: African Americans in New York City, 1626-1863 (2002), she challenges the prevailing view of slavery as a phenomenon of the southern United States, with little impact or importance in the northern U.S. Prof. Harris is also known for her work in public scholarship, and she served as a principal adviser to the "Slavery in New York" exhibit at the New-York Historical Society (2005-2006), and co-edited the book that accompanied it. She is likewise the co-founder and director of the Transforming Community Project (TCP), which was funded by the Ford Foundation's Difficult Dialogue Initiative and the Office of the President of Emory University. She is also the principal investigator for the New Orleans After Katrina project, which utilizes Zotero and Omeka to allow students, scholars, and the general public a way to approach the history of New Orleans in a collaborative and critical fashion.

Funding:

Organized by the Center for the Humanities and the Public Sphere, and co-sponsored by the UF Center for the Humanities and the Public Sphere (Rothman Endowment), the Harn Eminent Scholar Chair in Art History Program, the UF Honors Program, the Alexander Grass Chair in Jewish History at UF, the UF International Center, the UF Office of Research, UF College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, the UF Center for Jewish Studies, the UF Libraries, the UF College of Public Health and Health Professions, the UF France-Florida Research Institute, the Hyatt and Cici Brown Endowment for Florida Archaeology, the UF Department of History, the UF African American Studies Program, the UF Center for Women’s Studies and Gender Research, UF College of Design, Construction and Planning, and the Alachua County Library District.